Windy City Drama

It’s good to be a Chicago sports fan these days.  Or, at least, it’s exciting.  Or excruciating.  Depends on the moment/sport.

The Blackhawks took care of the Flames in a back-and-forth series on the ice, and although they are down in the 3rd period of the first game of their series with the Canucks, hockey fans have  lots to cheer for.  [Side note:  Would like to know why Vancouver's pro hockey team uses a derogatory term for their name.]

The Sox and Cubs have fans pulling out their hair much of the time (except for when they are winning).  And as the Cubs have just given away a game they led much of the time in the top of the 10th, I have nothing to say about them right now.  Wait — I think they just got an out.  That’s…never mind.

But the Bulls.  Talk about Drama.  Or DRAMA.  With the exception of an ugly Game 3, the Bulls have given the defending national champs all they can handle and then some.  [Side note: I am not a Bulls fan, but I do enjoy cheering for the underdog, especially against an obnoxious team like the Celtics -- see the previous post from TheWittyOne.  But Noah still drives me crazy.]  And as if four previous games didn’t have enough drama, take Game 6.  The Bulls were up.  The Celtics came back.  The game ended in a tie.  (Pause for shock.)  OT was back and forth.  It ended in a tie.  (Another pause for shock.)  In 2OT, the Bulls were up.  The Celtics came back on a 3 that shouldn’t have been allowed.  The Bulls failed to get a shot off.  It ended in a tie.  (Once again, shock.)  3OT included a missed dunk, a block and 2 missed free throws in the last 12 or so seconds, before the Bulls finally claimed a 1-point victory.

DRAMA. 

Let’s hope the Windy City gets to enjoy more sports drama in 2009.  Like extended playoffs for the Hawks and Bulls.  Playoffs for the baseball teams.  And a strong performance from the Bears and their new QB…and…

Why The Celtics (And Their Fans) Must Be Stopped

Last week, after the Bulls’ first victory against the Celtics, TheCleverOne and I were discussing the topic via email. I articulated my hatred for Celtics fans thusly:

If my team was the #2 seed and the defending NBA champ, and was playing at home, and was getting their ass handed to them by a rookie point guard from a #7 seed—then I would not be jumping up and down and waving my finger in the air in a “we’re #1” fashion, like the world’s most entitled douchenozzle. I’d be under my chair, praying.

However, as the series has continued, I have come to realize that I was wrong in what I said. First of all, I was not nearly harsh enough. Second of all, I should have included the Celtics players in my rant.

This has been a great series. Four of the five games thus far have come down to the wire. I credit the Bulls. They’ve showed tenacity and toughness that I didn’t know they possessed. And all this experience can only benefit the team, especially the younger players. Maybe Vinny Del Negro will even learn a thing or three about strategy and how not to run out of timeouts before the game is over.

However, I have not, at any point, confused the Bulls’ surprising play with them actually being a contending team, or even a very good team. They are a growing team that is currently overachieving.

Thus, I fail to see how this series has been anything short of embarrassing for the Celtics. They are the more talented, more experienced team. They have home court advantage. The refs have been most obliging to them. And really, that’s fine. If you spend several years in the league establishing yourself, you probably deserve the benefit of the doubt. Any Chicagoan who remembers the MJ era knows this better than anyone.

So I can’t complain about the officiating in general. I can complain about the officiating specifically, like when a guy gets punched in the mouth in a no-ball foul in the waning seconds of the game and that’s not considered flagrant. But hey. If punching a guy in the mouth is what the Celtics need to do in order to beat an obviously inferior and overmatched team, then they should go for it. You stay classy, Boston!

And don’t even get me started on Kevin Garnett. All that jawing is pretty remarkable coming from a guy who hasn’t done a single thing this series except sit his butt down on the bench (or sulk in the locker room, when he prefers). I mean, wow. WOW.

So I’d like to amend my rant as follows:

If I were either a player on or a fan of a team that owns #2 seed, or a team that is the defending NBA champ, or a team that has the benefit of home court advantage—hell, how about all three—and we had already been taken into OT an NBA-record 3 times by an obviously overmatched #7 seed with a rookie head coach who can’t even count timeouts, or we’d been schooled by a rookie point guard and/or a guy with a bum leg, or if we had to resort to fisticuffs in order to win a game, then I would not be jumping up and down and waving my finger in the air in a “we’re #1” fashion, nor would I be sh*t-talking the other team, like the world’s most entitled douchenozzle. I’d be under my chair, praying that the Lord in his infinite mercy would not wipe me off the face of the earth right then and there.

I feel better now, thanks. Next Topic: How the “Big Baby” nickname needs to be retired never should have existed in the first place.

My Most Hated Things: A Musical Ode

I could put an explanation here: “To the tune of…” However, I’m guessing that all of you are sharp enough to figure this one out. If you aren’t, please email me and I will rewrite the penultimate verse to include you.

Special thanks goes to the Celtics fans who attended Saturday’s game, especially, and Monday’s game as well. Thinking about how I wanted to punch all of them in the face got me thinking about other sports things that I hate. These fans do not appear in this song, but they are the inspiration behind it.

Patriots Nation and Cardinal backers
Manny Ramirez and other dumb slackers
Media types whose “insight” is wanting
These are a few of my most hated things

Nibbling the corners and walking the batters
Pumping your fist like your stupid team matters
The Packers will cause my rage bell to ring
These are a few of my most hated things

The Astros, the Reds and the Milwaukee Brewers
I wish these teams would be flushed down the sewers
But playing the Pirates a victory brings
So they are not one of my most hated things

Headhunter Beckett and ‘roided-up freaks
Your lack of integrity gives me the creeps
Bill Belichick acts like he’s king
These are a few of my most hated things

Jeter and A-Rod and CC, that fatty
All Yankee players, oh so mercenary
You can’t buy a pennant, that surely must sting
These are a few of my most hated things

Tony LaRussa, that fraud Dusty Baker
All their excuses could fill up an acre
Did I mention the Cards, how their ass needs kicking!
These are a few of my most hated things

When the hate strikes
I don’t fight it
That isn’t much fun
I simply remember my most hated things
And then I go find my gun!

Happy Holidays

Christmas means many different things to people.  And while I’ve been overdosing on Christmas music and lights and shopping and wrapping and parties and more, Christmas also means sports.  The holiday season also includes New Year’s Day, a time to make resolutions that you probably won’t keep, and enjoy more sports…

• College football bowl games now start even before Christmas, and the Day itself means we have just a week to go before the really good bowls start.
• Just before Christmas, one of the best non-conference college basketball rivalry games takes place in St. Louis.  Illinois v. Mizzou.  Fans split the arena down the middle.  And I try to have a Braggin’ Rights party to watch.  Good times.
• Apparently some NBA teams play on Christmas.  But since MJ retired (the first time), I have a hard time caring.  Want to see his son play?  See the bullet above. 
• This year, Chicago has a special holiday treat.  The Blackhawks will play an outdoor game at Wrigley a week after Christmas.  And I’ll have to pay a bit of attention. 
• Oh, and just on the heels of the BCS bowl games and the New Year comes conference play in college basketball.
• And TheSassyOne can tell you how many days until pitchers and catchers report…

So, with all that in mind, happy holidays!

Just How Good is Derrick Rose?

This is how good he is: he inspires me to watch Bulls basketball.

As the post-Jordan years have worn on, I had progressively given up on the Bulls. Yeah, I still pay attention to them. But would I voluntarily sit down and watch a whole game? Chances are slim. As much as I admired the defensive abilities and the work ethic of Scott Skiles’ best teams, that never made for hugely exciting basketball. I never sat down in front of the TV thinking, I wonder what the Bulls are going to do tonight. I’ve got to tune in and see what’s going to happen.

I still think the Bulls are overmatched this year. I think Vinny Del Negro is in over his head, though he’s at least shown enough to make me hope against hope that he might get it above water before his deal runs out. As a team, they seem bound and determined to hover somewhere near .500, which might just be good enough to earn them the privilege of losing to the Celtics in the first round of the playoffs.

But none of this matters when Derrick Rose is on the floor. When he is good, he is not just good or even very good. He is almost transcendent. It’s still a work in progress, but in just about six weeks of the season, he’s already given us more did-you-just-see-that moments than every other Bulls player in the post-Jordan years has given us. That’s every player in the entire post-Jordan era combined.

Finally, there’s real reason for hope in Chicago basketball. And this alone is enough to make me watch. Heck, I might even buy a ticket just so I can see greatness developing in person.

Versus

Kyle Orton vs. Expectations

The expectations for the Bears’ offense in general and Kyle Orton in particular have risen with each game. And so far, Orton has answered the bell. Despite the Bears’ well chronicled struggles at QB, Orton isn’t the first Bears passer to string together 7 decent games. It’s just that those 7 are usually followed by 17 (or more) terrible efforts. Will Orton avoid that and continue to satisfy a city suddenly clammoring for a contract extension?

Verdict: Pending.

Cole Hamels vs. God

Given that his last start was cut short by a driving rainstorm, Hamels appears to have finally come up against the one who can stop him this postseason. But Hamels may get the last laugh since the delay means he might have the chance to take the hill in Game 7, should the series go to the limit. But as I write this, the Phils are up by one and the Rays have just three outs to do something about that. So for the time being, the edge goes to the Almighty.

Verdict: God.

Isaiah Thomas vs. The Truth

Thomas tried to lie his way out of an embarrassing medical incident, showing no shame in feeding his own daughter to the wolves along the way. Of course, this particular lie is my favorite sort of of lie: the implausible one (and when I say “favorite,” I mean “least favorite”). There are usually records kept about these sorts of incidents, and various medical personnel are involved. In what universe must you live in order to believe that reports will be falsified and that officials will lie in order to protect the tattered remains of your reputation? What an idiot.

Verdict: The Truth. The Truth always wins. Don’t mess with The Truth.

Let’s All Hold Out Together

Devin Hester has, at least for now, ended his holdout and reported to training camp. Traditionally, players who hold out don’t get much sympathy from the fans. First of all, it’s hard for a middle class schlub to swallow the notion that anyone making an athlete’s salary, even the lowest of athlete’s salaries, is underpaid. Second of all, it seems selfish. Third of all, there’s the “you made your bed, now lie in it” philosophy that says if you signed your name to a contract, you need to honor your word. No fair going back on it just because you changed your mind.

I am in the camp that thinks that millionaires should stop whining, that it seems selfish because it is, and that your word is your bond. However, notice that nearly all holdouts are in football. Most other sports don’t really have a vocabulary for it, other than the opt-out clauses built into certain contracts, such as the one that A-Rod infamously exercised a little while back.

And it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why holdouts run rampant in the NFL while being almost unheard of in other leagues. NFL contracts are not guaranteed. If you sign an MLB contract and then accidentally stab yourself in the hand while trying to put the cap back on the pen and as a result never play another inning, the team will have a hell of a time getting out of even one penny of that contract. But other than signing bonus money, nothing in the NFL is guaranteed.

An MLB contract offers shared risk. The player is giving up the possibility of more money on the open market for the security of a guaranteed payday. In the name of acquiring or keeping a productive player, the team is accepting the possibility that he may underperform, get injured, or otherwise fail to live up to the expectations of the deal. And so Barry Zito makes more than $120 million for serving up meatballs.

However, an NFL contract offers mostly one-sided risk. If a player outperforms his deal in the NFL, he has no recourse. But if he underperforms, the team does have recourse. They simply pull a Heidi Klum and auf wiedersehen! And since the NFL carries perhaps the greatest physical risk of any of the major sports…well, I still can’t condone a holdout, but I can see why they exist.

I don’t claim to know everything about collective bargaining agreements. I do know that the NFL has probably the strictest salary cap in professional sports. I do know that they have a salary floor as well. This prevents the spectacle that we have in the MLB, where the Yankees outspend the Marlins by about a 10:1 ratio, and where revenue sharing can line an owner’s pockets without the benefits ever being passed onto the players themselves. The result is that the NFL is a much more competitive league, and ultimately competition benefits the players when it comes to to commanding a salary on the open market (should they ever get there) and when it comes to winning championships—which is what most all players ultimately claim to be about. In other words, no league is perfect.

Personally, I’d prefer guaranteed contracts. To me, that’s the essence of a contract: both parties binding themselves. If a team can ix-nay a player for underperforming, it seems like a player should have some method of being compensated for overperforming, without alienating fans and teammates by acting like a selfish jerk.

And the league that tries hardest to have it both ways, the NBA, has only done so by building a structure so convoluted that it winds up turning the whole thing into a game of who can best manipulate the system. But, in my opinion, that’s not so bad. If you’re smart enough to master a complicated system AND figure out how to use that system to your best advantage, I say bully for you. Why should you not reap the benefits of that? The downside is that the fans can’t keep up, but few fans care about the economics anyway. NBA fans don’t have to put up with their favorite player holding out, nor do they have to put up with their team getting outspent by some arrogant arseholes from New York. The only downside is that you might have to put up with losing a key role player because all your team could offer was a “mid-level exception,” whatever the bloody heck that means.

All leagues have their systems that can be exploited. Figure out how to build talent in your farm system, and you can succeed on the cheap in the MLB. Figure out how to trade one oft injured, overpaid pitcher for a potential star under your control, and you can succeed in the MLB (nice job, Kenny Williams). Figure out how to lock up the league’s most explosive return man for less than $500K a year, and you can…go 7-9 just one year after making the Superbowl. Good show, Jerry!

Heading “Home”

That’s kind of what Jim Edmonds will be doing this weekend.  As the Cubbies head to St. Louis, Jim Edmonds will visit his old stomping grounds for the first time as a member of a bitter rival.  The Cubs-Cards division rivalry is one of baseball’s best.  And Edmonds spent many years on the other side of it. 

I will admit that although I initially saw Edmonds as a tool to help the Cubs win (that happens to be an ex-Card), his performance in the first Cubs-Sox series went a long way toward establishing him as a member of this team in my mind.  But a strong performance this weekend would make it much easier to embrace him.  He probably won’t get a very warm welcome now that he is in Cubbie blue, but a good game against his old team would be so sweet for Cubs Nation. 

The Cubs as a whole seemed to stablize a bit this week with the split in San Fransico, but I’m hoping for some offensive fireworks from Ramirez, Lee & company in St. Louis this weekend to take the series against a division rival.

As TheWittyOne noted, Derrick Rose, one of the newest members of the Bulls, is also headed home to play.  Hope it works out well for him…

Welcome, Derrick Rose

At least he wasn’t wearing a seersucker suit.

By not dressing like a stooge, Derrick Rose has gotten off to a better start with the Chicago media and fans than Joakim Noah did last year. Considering that no Chicagoan wanted to acknowledge even having heard of the Bulls just a few weeks ago, I suppose the 180-degree flip-flop into excitement over Rose gives us our storyline.

Given the 2% chance that it would happen this way, no one expected the Bulls to land the first pick. I mean, what would be more likely to produce a giddy, “ooooo…shiny” reaction from you: digging in your pocket and finding a $5 you didn’t know you had, or a $100 bill you knew you had? If you’re like most people (i.e., if you’re normal), probably the first. Then measure your excitement over finding a $100 bill you didn’t know you had versus finding a $5 you knew you had. Now the story is really building up steam.

I’ve also heard several people suggest that part of the excitement is because Rose is a local kid. Because what this story needs is something to tug at the heartstrings, right?

Nah. I think the reason for the excitment over Rose can be summed up in two words: Chris Paul. Or, if you prefer: Deron Willams. Those are the two biggest names in a crop of recent draftees who have proven all over again that a skilled point guard can go a long way toward revitalizing a team in just a few short years.

The Bulls have still got problems. Big problems, in fact. But if nothing else, Rose gives the fans a reason to pay attention. And that’s notable, especially since the Bulls failed to do just that with the outcome of their recent coaching search.

Congrats, Paxson et al. You lucked into this one. Now go make something of it.

Another Day, Another Draft

The NBA draft is quickly approaching.  I really can’t get very excited about it, even with — or maybe because — the Bulls are going first.  Beyond seeing where the one-year wonders end up, I’m finding it hard to get into the manufactured drama of the draft.  Will Rose go first?  Will Beasley or Mayo go second?  Does it matter?

The majority of players projected to go at the very top of the draft haven’t graduated from college.  So what difference does the age minimum make in the NBA? 

I believe the age thing has become a useful marketing tool for both college and pro basketball.  Trojans knew they had one year with Mayo, and Hoosiers knew Gordon would be gone after a year as well.  But both fan bases savored the numbers and star power, and coaching staffs use these players to boost their stock in the eyes of other one-year-wonder wanna-bees who are still in high school.  At the same time, the players can use their markets, college fans and the craziness of March Madness to boost their stock to both pro scouts and marketers looking for endorsements.  And struggling NBA teams can draw fans and interest with well known college names.   

Is the age limit good for the game?  I don’t know, but the brilliant minds behind the players are learning to turn the rule into cash.  And that keeps the industry going.

So whoever the Bulls take in the first round, just watch for how long it takes for that guy to appear in a local — or national — commercial.